Quotations from Famous Humanists

Do you know what a humanist is? Perhaps you are one yourself. If so, you're in great company!

Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.

• ISAAC ASIMOV - scientist, author, and past president of the American Humanist Association.

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

When we speak of equality, of women and men, of Blacks and Whites, of all the world's people, we are talking about humanism.

• GLORIA STEINEM - founder of Ms.magazine, Humanist Pioneer Awardee.

Humanism, in all its simplicity, is the only genuine spirituality.

• ALBERT SCHWEITZER - accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Humanism is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity, of application of new ideas of scientific progress for the benefit of all.

• LINUS PAULING - scientist, Humanist of the Year in 1961, Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1954, Nobel Peace Prize in 1962.

Our nation's founders saw a free press and an educated citizenry as the twin pillars of democratic health. But we no longer live in their world of numerous small, independent presses. These days, the vast majority of Americans get their news from corporately-owned information monoliths and from their local newspapers, most of them corporate subsidiaries as well. That is why humanism and the Humanist magazine are so important. Won't you join us today?

• KURT VONNEGUT - author, lecturer, philanthropist and former honorary president of the American Humanist Association.